Solar power has become the poster child of renewable-energy champions, leaving power sources such as biomass, hydro and wind in the shade.
In Southwest Colorado, it seems reasonable.
“We’re sun-rich and water-poor,” said Dan Harms, the systems engineer at La Plata Electric Association. “We just don’t get requests for hydro projects.”
Statistics bear him out. At the end of 2013, LPEA had 477 customers with solar installations who sell excess power to the cooperative. In 2014, the agency received 298 applications for solar projects.
Big hydro is alive and well-established in the region.
Tri-State Generation and Transmission buys electricity from a 5,800 kilowatt plant at Vallecito Reservoir; Xcel Energy operates an 8,000 kW capacity plant at Tacoma on the Animas River north of Durango; and LPEA buys hydro-produced electricity from the 120 kW plant on Lemon Reservoir.
The average electricity consumption for an LPEA customer is about 600 kW per month. That means a 1 kW plant running at full capacity 24/7 produces enough electricity to power one household. But hydro plants don’t operate at full capacity 24/7.
Small hydro isn’t dead, Harms said.
“If private parties have hydro resources, they should explore them,” he said. “They just need the right confluences to make sure it works right.”
One place hydro does fit is on Dan Huntington’s ranch in Hesperus. He has operated a private power plant for about seven years.
Huntington takes water from the Hay Gulch Ditch and runs it through a pipeline for irrigation and to drive a 15 kW power plant that meets the electrical needs of his father’s house and outbuildings.
Huntington sells surplus power to LPEA through net metering.
On the public front, the Mancos Water Conservancy District has a 250 kW power plant on Jackson Gulch Reservoir.
District Manager Gary Kennedy said the power plant was installed in 1990 when a company that had acquired rights to hydro production on all area reservoirs dropped its option.
The plant, which operates from May into September, sells its power to Tri-State Generation and Transmission.
“I think small hydro will be very important in the future,” Kennedy said. “Technology is opening the possibility for individuals to install a personal hydro system.”
Relaxation of federal and state requirements for small-hydro projects will play a major role, too, said Kurt Johnson, a Telluride-based hydro consultant and president of the Colorado Small Hydro Association.
Johnson, using a tiny hydro project in Silverton as a wedge, was a driving force in bringing change to federal requirements.
Before President Barack Obama signed two bills in 2013 to streamline the licensing of power plants, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requirements for small-hydro projects were as cumbersome and expensive as for Hoover Dam-size plants.
In 2014, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed bipartisan legislation to cut red tape in small-hydro licensing.
Now, hydroelectric production not tied to a grid will avoid most federal- and state-permitting regulations, Johnson said.
A $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to Colorado should spur development of agricultural hydropower projects, said Eric Lane, director of conservation services, at the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
Lane said his agency has applied for funds for 30 projects, among them 20 that will convert flood-irrigation operations to more economical sprinkler systems.
